d, sugar, coffee, cotton, and other West India produce, which
pass through the hands of the North Americans, in payment for their
supplies to the West India Islands, which cannot exist without their
produce. Also, in course of trade, spermaceti oil and salt-fish may be
supplied to Prussia and Germany as cheap, or cheaper from the
Colonies, than from Holland and Germany. The United Colonies exported
to Europe chiefly, indeed, to Great Britain, fish-oil, whalebone,
spermaceti, furs, and peltry of every kind, masts, spars, and timber,
pot and pearl ashes, flax-seed, beef, pork, butter and cheese, horses
and oxen; to the West Indies chiefly, wheat-flour, bread, rye, Indian
corn, lumber, tobacco, iron, naval stores, beeswax, rice, and indigo,
&c. &c. to the amount of more than L4,000,000 sterling annually, and
for some years past, and received the pay in European manufactures;
and when I remind you that the inhabitants of that country double
their number every twenty years, and inform you that this exportation
has increased for the last century in the same ratio, you will be able
to form some idea of this commerce, and of how much importance it is
to Europe. I hope, by the coming post, to send you some favorable
news from America, and I may not add to this without missing the post.

I am, with the most sincere esteem, dear Sir, your most obedient
servant,

SILAS DEANE.

* * * * *

SILAS DEANE TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

Paris, October 9th, 1776.

Sir,

I wrote you by last post. This comes by Mr Carmichael, a gentleman of
Maryland, in America, who has for some time lived with, and assisted
me in my business. You can have the fullest confidence in him, and as
he knows I place the most absolute in you, it would be trifling to
swell a letter with news or observations, of both which he can _viva
voce_ satisfy you. He will communicate to you his business in Holland,
and I am sure you will assist him to the utmost of your power. He can
tell you what an anxious and laborious life I lead here; and, what
adds to my misfortune, how impossible it is, in the present critical
situation of affairs, for me to quit this post for a single day; much
more it is as yet impossible for me to leave long enough to visit you
in Holland, which having long promised to myself, and anticipated with
pl